a lazy mother to two active children

Monthly Archives: September 2013

One of the worst things about being on maternity leave is that we don’t have time for much but we always find time to shop (online). It’s amazing the amount of things I bought on impulse.

The latest one arrived today but I got it thinking of our trip to Brazil. In January. Why, God, why?

I was looking for a tent to protect Bea and Laura from the sun and found this one, which not only is a tent but also a “bed” with mosquito net. It was perfect, because where my mum lives has more mosquitoes than the whole of Europe. Seriously, first time Laura was there she had about 40 mosquitoes bites on her body and this was on the firt couple of days.

So, although I don’t need this now, I bought it now (holiday mode on) and test it. It seems to be ok, good quality and all but the real test is yet to come. One complaint though: there is no way that the tent fits in the carry bag it comes with. Several tentatives later, already sweating like a pig from the “workout”, I managed to fit it in, but just, and I’m not sure the bag will last long. I think it’s a team effort and still not sure it fits (*).

We had a good weekend, despite my horrid mood and bad weather (some might say the mood is beyond horrid and the weather is not that bad).

On Saturday, Laura was up to going for a ballet class trial and I dare say she enjoyed it. She was shy 90% of the class, but she wasn’t the only one. I was with her all the time, even making the moves Miss I-can’t-remember-her-name was teaching. Some very cute girls, all dressed accordingly (Laura was wearig a Winx dress), seemed to be doing this for quite a while. Let’s hope she will carry on with it – I paid for 3 trial sessions, always on a Saturday morning (yawn).

We then went to a park, per Laura’s request, following what was probably the last barbecue of the year. The place was quite far and in the middle of nowhere. I thought we lived in the middle of nowhere but this is the big city compared to where we went. I admire these people that trade the hectic life of London (or any big city) to a quiet life in the countryside, opting for space (the houses are usually huge with a lot of outdoor space) and “quality” of life. The ” ” here is because this type of quality can be very subjective. I would freak out if I was in the middle of nowhere. Jack Nicholson in The Shining? You call called it Miss Lazy in the country. I don’t like to drive, you see, and to live in such places you HAVE to drive. Or be locked in the house. I drove on the way back, at night, and hubby said “see? It wasn’t too bad”. Internally, I was weeping, praying that nothing bad would happened and had my body – in special my shoulders and neck – contracted.

On Sunday, as per Laura’s request again, we went to London Zoo. Last time I went was in 2010, I was pregnant and it was a work thing. I love Zoos but I find them a bit expensive. I understand it is very expensive to run a Zoo, especially one like London Zoo, where they not only have the actual zoo, but also run researches all over the world. But it’s not every day that you can spend £100 like that. Yes, this is how much a trip to the Zoo can cost. If you go by public transport, you pay for the fare, but we went by car (Sundays usually we have less trains and this particular Sunday there were some works, I heard). We managed to avoid paying for parking, but it can cost £14.50 if you park in the zoo’s car park. Then there is the entrance fee, almost £25 per adult and £16 per child above 3. Then there is the food, our lunch costing £25. And the ice cream… If you can plan your trip in advance, make sure you check promotions (buying online is slightly cheaper; or you can become a member if you fancy going more than 4 times a year) and pack your own lunch. It was worth it as Laura was still excited about the whole thing this morning when I dropped her off at the nursery.

The kids don’t seem to be tired from the weekend but I am. I feel like I have sand in my eyes… Unfortunately Monday is the worst day for being lazy and I have to organise the house after the mess it is on the weekend (“three” children making a mess and one adult to tidy up, not easy).

Not a single photo taken, despite having the camera. I guess that it’s hard to take photos when you are too busy holding a needy baby or encouraging your daughter to dance having fun.

Laura: Mum, look, the sun is shining!
Mum: Yes, it’s coming from behind that house
L: Why isn’t the sun up in the sky? Why is it behind the house?
M: Because the sun is slow and it takes hours for it to be up there.(*)
L: When I become the sun, I will be fast and go quickly to the top.

(*) She is too young to be presented to the “earth going round the sun” talk and I’m too lazy to explain it 200 times so she get it. Maybe next year.

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So Laura is going through a “when I become a _________” (fill in with whatever subject you’re talking about). It’s kinda funny to see how she thinks she can be everything and anything. Sometimes she comes up with “when I become a baby…” Or “when I become a boy…”.

Another cute thing is when she says “when I grow smaller”. She says this all the time when we are talking about Beatrice.

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Thanks to Mr. C, Laura is into Batman and Spiderman. He told her stories of both during bedtime when we were in Romania and now she talks about them all the time. She used to say Badman, instead of Batman though.

Despite her “love” for Batman and Spiderman, she is also into Princesses, Fairies and Mermaids. And cars, trains, Tom and Jerry, dragons, My little pony, Barbie, pirates,… She is pretty much interested in everything except washing her hair and brushing her teeth.

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Being the youngest can be very tough, depending on who the eldest is. Laura is like this: we ask “Laura, let’s not talk too loud, so Bea can sleep. Laura goes: AAAAAAAAAHHHHH, LA-LALALALALALALALALALALA. As loud as possible. We say: Laura, you have a cold, don’t get too close to Bea. Laura goes: Bea, give me a kiss. And smack on Bea’s mouth.

Despite that, Laura loves Bea to bits. She talks about her all the time at the nursery and when I pick her up, she wants me to show Bea to all her friends. Yesterday she had an audience of 3 kids, gathered around to see Beatrice and she went saying: “Beatrice is very small. You cannot touch her with your dirty hands. And you cannot beat her, because she is small”. Ok, Laura, you cannot beat ANYBODY.

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Beatrice loves kids. She smiles at them and screams in excitement. She smiles and screams to her own reflection. And to the photos of Laura around the house. Funnily enough, she doesn’t always have this behaviour when the real Laura is around. She mainly looks and stares. I wonder why. 😉

One of the reasons why I can’t find time to sort the photos of Romania out (one of a thousand reasons) is because I am planning our next trip.

For the records: I hate planning trips. I find it complicated and frustrating.

We are going to Bahia. Last time I’ve been to Bahia, I was 2 years old, which means I don’t remember anything. So it will be like it’s my very first time. The planning of this trip started with several mistakes – the first of them being “not planning” the trip. And I can’t control my anxiety about the whole thing and I get frustrated because we don’t have time enough to explore the state properly. The state is HUGE (more than 900 Km of coast), there is a lot to see and do, and a decent trip should be at least one month long.

We had a bit of a stumble with the tickets, which I wrote about here. Since we didn’t have the tickets, we (I?) kept changing our minds about the destination and three months went by and the prices went to the roof. I’m not kidding: travelling from Rio to anywhere in the Northeast of Brazil costs almost the same as an international trip – sometimes more. In the end, we are now paying more than we would have paid if we booked the flight straight to Salvador (at the time it wasn’t). But never mind, now we have the tickets to Salvador. Next step will be to sort out the itinerary (the most difficult part) and then book the accommodation and a car.

We are using our experience in Romania to avoid overdoing things. We are not the adventurous hyperactive type of couple, we like to take it easy, enjoy the places, relax, and with two kids, I think we got slower.

Here are some images I found on Google to show you the places we are planning to visit:

We arrived from Romania on Sunday and since then I have had my up and downs being on my own at home. I take Laura every morning to the nursery and pick her up at the end of the day. I feel like a loser to have her every day at the nursery while I am at home with Beatrice, but truth is: I am a loser. I am far to be a great mother that can entertain her 3 years old while looking after of her four month old. We don’t have a routine. Beatrice doesn’t have a routine. She sleeps when she wants, she feeds when she wants. Laura has her needs, she needs to eat, to get dressed, brush her teeth, and she doesn’t do these things on her own (she eats, but doesn’t cook, of course). She also needs to play, to talk, to run… and it has been raining every day since we got back, except on Sunday. And I feel completely exhausted and lost and cannot get myself organised with the things I need to do and the things I want to do. This week has been tough and most of my time is spent putting Beatrice to sleep and feeding her. I’ve been so so tired that some days I barely smile. This evening, with Laura at home, I was feeling numb, a bit like a zombie or a robot. She noticed, of course, because she notice everything these days. I haven’t been sleeping well and the girls wake up far too early for my liking.

But this is not a self-pity post. I’m sure it will get better and I will get used to the new routine. Beatrice is still quite small and is still adapting to the world. She is sorting her own routine out, while I give her a helping hand whenever I can. I am already understanding her sleeping patterns, still a bit confused, but I can see when she is tired and it is roughly around the same times. Roughly, not precisely, it is important to say.

As for me, I am trying to establish my own routine (around Beatrice), but it is hard. The weather is so so crap that I think I’m getting depressed again. I can’t leave the house. I don’t want to. I only leave the house when I need to – to take and pick up Laura, a doctors appointment. Beatrice and Laura have runny nose and might be developing a cold – nothing new, everybody in this country, except me, has a cold 9 months a year. The painful part is that I don’t sleep listening to their poor breathing. So I can go out in this weather risking Beatrice to get worse and not sleeping at all. And I don’t feel like going out. At all. I did, a couple of times, to walk and exercise and I felt miserable during the walk, just wanting to go back home.

Next week I’m going to look for a baby massage course. At least it’s indoors.

Tomorrow we are taking Laura for a ballet class trial. Let’s see if Laura will like it and want more. She is now dancing and singing in front of the mirror, but she is a shy kid.

And tomorrow my Godmother is coming to have lunch with us. It’s been ages since I last saw her – maybe 6 years? The reason why I’m still up is because I completely forgot about the lunch tomorrow and the desert I wanted to prepare needs some many hours cooling time. Up to two hours to cook and 6 hours in the fridge. I’m planning to prepare a fish stew – my first. Fingers crossed that it will be edible.

Now… Romania. Geez, I have so much to write about and I need to do it quickly before I forget things. I also have to sort the over 2,000 photos I took. Ops. It will come, I promise.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with some photos of our trip, but mainly of my babies, all taken near the Bear Lake, in Sovata.

Big similarity between Laura and Beatrice is that both enjoy sleeping in our arms. Bea sleeps for 30 minutes max if put down on bed or pushchair. But can sleep for 90-120 minutes if in my arms. Cool, eh?

Big difference between Laura and Bea is that Laura would sleep easily in the car or pushchair. Bea will only fall asleep is she is exhausted and after some good crying.

Was all the years consuming caffeine?

Oh, well, she will soon be 18 and won’t want to sleep in my arms anymore. Nevermind the dirty dishes waiting in the sink.

She loves sleeping in our arms (thanks, grandmothers) and hardly accepts anything other than that (except at bedtime).

Since last week, she has been drinking lots of milk (at least it feels like that). While we were in Romania, she would have between 4 and 5 feeds AT NIGHT! Talk about sore breasts.

Despite having so much milk, she is still a small baby. When she was born, she was near the 9th percentile in the growth chart. Between 4 and 8 weeks she had a weight jump and went to the 50th percentile. Now she is slowly going back to the 9th, until the next growth spurt. She is weighing 5,640kg, no idea how much she measures as, in the baby clinic I go, they don’t measure babies until the 8-12 months check up.

Luckily, when she wakes up for a feed at night, she drinks her milk in 5 minutes and go back to sleep straight away; no messing about.

Her expression when she knows that she is going to have milk is the cutest ever! I don’t mind feeding her 20 times a day just to see that face.

Last week, she decided to roll over and she is finally enjoying staying on her tummy. We were all happy when she turned all by herself and all, but now we are extra cautious at night, as she rolls on to her tummy while sleeping and dig her face in the mattress. Yes, I do have panic attacks with the idea that she might suffocate.

According to the lady at the baby clinic, she is too young to be rolling over. According to my mum, I was rolling over since my 1st month.

She holds her head beautifully and tries to push herself forward when on her tummy (rehearsal of crawling?).

She is now a bad day sleeper. She doesn’t sleep that easily in the car or in the pushchair, unlike Laura at the same age. And as soon as we put her down wherever, she wakes up.

She prefers her fingers to the dummy. Sometimes she sucks her fingers (yes, plural) so hard that it gives her gag reflex. Sometimes she sucks her lips as if she has an imaginary dummy.

She is very energetic with her arms and legs and seems like she is dancing.

She almost sits without support.

One of her type of cries resembles a cat’s meow.

Lots of drooling, hand in mouth, everything in mouth, screams (oh, yes, she found out that she can scream, so she screams, if she is happy, sad, angry, hungry).

Today is her 3rd set of immunisations and tomorrow she will have the BCG injection. Wish us luck!